 Abledonar Major Sponsorship was given by Green Mountain Support Services, Empowering Neighbors with Disabilities to be home in the community. Also sponsorship was given by Washington County Mental Health Services, where hope and support come together, and Champlain Community Services of Vermont. Hello and welcome to this edition of Abledonar, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements of the different label in Vermont and beyond. I'm your host Lauren Seiler. I'm Lauren Seiler. And before we get to our guests, we are sponsored and we would like to thank Washington County Mental Health, Green Mountain Support Services, and Champlain Community Services. We would like to invite you to go to www.OrcaMedia.net and watch our program at another time. Our guest today is school teacher as well as the mayor of Montpelier and Watson and Donna Bate, City Councilwoman. Welcome to Abledonar Land. Thank you for having us. And let's start with this. Off air, you gave me a long piece of paper to read and that was about the infrastructure of Montpelier and the goals of the city of Montpelier. Can you explain a little bit about that? Sure. So the city recently did a self-evaluation, had a consulting firm help us sort of figure out what we needed to be doing as a city to be making sure that our public facilities and services were accessible to people with a variety of disabilities. And so the document that came back was a transition plan for us that was very detailed and had a lot of very specific recommendations about how the city can be doing better. Like what kind of infrastructure we would be needing to be more fully accessible. The infrastructure would be cracks in the sidewalk, buildings being fixed. Yeah, it included things like having van accessible parking spaces and having tactile exit signs and things like that. Well, as far as infrastructure, except what there's something in buildings called the grandfather clause, which means that the building is old and old. They don't necessarily need a ramp or need to be accessible. How does how can the city infrastructure fix those things or work on fixing that? Well, I was going to say there's a difference between being required to and doing it. So you can do it, but you may not be legally required if you're in historical building. I think the city's intention is to make things accessible no matter how old they are. It may mean that not every building has an elevator, but there are services you can provide downstairs to make sure the public can at least be connected to any services upstairs they don't already have connection to. Example? Well, let's say someone came in and they wanted to talk to someone about licensing, but that person was housed on the second floor. Then we would ask that department to provide someone going downstairs to work with that person who couldn't access the upstairs because the building was too old and too financially overwhelming to put an elevator in. So again, it's bringing the services to the person within the context of that working day where the person is in the building just not on the first floor normally, but they can go to the first floor. Does that make sense? Makes sense. Yeah, I think as a city, we have an obligation to be able to provide services to everyone regardless of ability. Yeah, maybe it's more accessible. Yeah. Yeah. And if you're not accessible in that area, you figure out how to become accessible. Yes, right. Transportation, important topic. I also sit on the, my wife and I sit on the Imperial Regional Planning Council, and we've been discussing power transit and people with special needs and they're supposed to be new. Power transit. In terms of accessible transportation, what are some of the things that you guys are working on with the City Council to deal with transportation and people with disabilities or problems in the past, how do you fix them, et cetera? Well, there are some separations here of Green Mountain Transit and Greyhound who are the transportation direct provider taxis, and then there's a city who has certain roots or certain influences to those organizations, but I say on the regional transportation group as well as the local and Montpellier, the name is Montpellier Interstructure, Transportation Infrastructure Committee, the goal is to make more of those services available. Now, I can get a debate with you about paratransit because I feel like on one hand, that's a wonderful way for people with clear disabilities, but you do have to qualify. You do have to arrange things ahead. There are those that have silent challenges. Yes. It's not every single good thing. To provide a clear understanding, a disability, I mean, if you can't do something and you have a challenge, figure a way around it, but those that have silent challenges, like deafness, for example, and they need help. Well, or even more subtle challenges. The one thing I'd like your audience to really call me about and to call anyone within the transportation community is that the difference between paratransit is more those obvious, more clear, definable disabilities, but just like myself, temporarily being in a knee brace, a foot brace, and now still I have a bad knee left from this auto accident, that there are plenty of times I can't get that big step in and out of the bus, but I'm not obviously disabled, but I need assistance. And so I still think the more we put into our general public roots that is accessible to everybody, it's better than having totally a separate paratransit service. So that's my concern. I mean, there are plenty of people who used transportation service because of some physical limitation, even though they might not qualify for paratransit. So that's my concern, that I want more accessibility, not less. The ability in a new transit center, I see. Yes. They are, yeah. And that's hopefully not only to- Did City Council pass any of the budget for that to make it accessible, or was that specifically, is that done on a federal level, not state? No, that's a local project done with state and federal dollars, and it's been a long time, many, many years. But the idea there is not only accessibility, that you connect all the routes, both regional and local, but you do it in a much more comfortable way. Safety out of the weather. It's also a safety situation, because we've had friends of ours that come to visit us, and a bus stops at three o'clock in the morning, it's not safe. Yes, yes. I've done that. Yes, me too. And you look around, single woman, and say, I'm here. No, Montpelier is extremely safe. However, there's also some, you know, you have to sometimes, because in the world we live in, it has to do with security. For sure. As well. And with our weather, you're not always safe from the elements. Yeah, exactly. It's better to have this transit system will be wonderful. Which brings me, since you say elements, we're jumping around with this important stuff. Cool. Homelessness. And people with special needs. What is your take on homeless services and that? So we were actually just last night at our city council meeting talking about homelessness and the need for some additional services, potentially in the Montpelier area. So we know there is a group that has been. Good Samaritan. Yeah, right. So the Good Samaritan, but there's also an organization. It's like a collaborative group of service providers in the area, places that serve meals over the course of the week, and organizations like Good Samaritan, or another way. We're all together trying to be involved in terms of figuring out how they can be working together to meet the needs of folks better than they are now. So there is a list of service providers on the city website. And just yesterday, actually, I was talking with one of the fellows who's organizing that association of organizations about the possibility of the city being more involved in figuring out how we can help in any way, finding whatever gaps there are and then seeing what organization might be the best to help meet those gaps. Speaking of gaps, voting in people with disabilities. There's been those new voting booths that they have on election day that are accessible for people with special needs. But are there other ways that Montpelier is working to help people with special needs in the voting process? And then I'll bring up the census at the same time. Is there any ways that you guys are working? So I am not aware of any other ways that the city is working on making voting more accessible. We did just recently get those machines, though I know I've also in the past actually been involved in helping read a ballot to someone who needed help, even just seeing the ballots and talking through what the options were. But besides that, I'm not aware of any other. I think some of them are hidden. Just as the piece, you can be organized to get a ballot taken to your home and to just as the piece come from both parties so that you can be assisted both to read it and to make sure you get the vote and you carry it back. But also there's so much early voting to really make it more available to people outside of the regular work hours. I think our city clerk has really worked hard to allow people to vote often early and immediately. You may not have registered yet but you show up and you have your IDs with you and you'll become registered. So in that way I think we're really trying to extend ourselves. So I've done a little program I'm going to mention the census. It's extremely important for people with special needs to go out and vote because if you don't, you're not counted. Now obviously if you don't understand the voting process, someone I'm sure can explain it to a person with special needs. But in terms of education, your teacher, you have been for a long time. How long have you been a teacher? Gosh, this coming year will be the beginning of your 15. What does your take on people with special needs and higher education and special education for example? Is there anything that you're doing as Montpelier's mayor to help with education and people with special needs? So it's probably important to understand that the city of Montpelier is very, it's hierarchically separate from the school district. So sometimes people think that as the mayor, I have some say over how the school district is run. And that is the case in some municipalities. I'm not sure of any in Vermont that work that way but in other states that's sometimes the case. But in Montpelier and I think generally in Vermont, the school district is very separate. What do you mean by separate? Exactly. So as a mayor and really as a council, we don't have any influence over what happens in the school district. So if we have an opinion, it's my personal opinion. If I go to a school board meeting, I'm there sharing something from my personal opinion as a resident of Montpelier. But as a city council, there's a really definitive responsibilities that are separate. And I mean I can speak to, you know, my experience as a teacher in my own classroom but that is that's about as far as I can. Okay, well your opinion as a teacher then. Sure. Your math teacher, correct? I teach physics and engineering and math, yes. Okay. But what does your take on special education and the importance of people with special needs and education? Oh, oh gosh. It's okay to add your own opinion. Yeah, fair enough. Well, so Montpelier High School and I think along with the rest of education in the state has really strived to mainstream students with disabilities as much as is possible and is reasonable. And so I actually have taught some math classes that had a high proportion of students with disabilities and I just, I actually really enjoyed those classes. I think they're really wonderful that students are often just like really, really like ready to participate and eager to learn. You think people with special or kids with disabilities don't get the fair shake of the, how can I say this? They're not treated as good as they were. Well, they're treated better now than they were in the past. Well, I think that's certainly true that they're treated better now than they were but I think it's also, I think it's also true that sometimes students get sort of put in a box in a certain sense like oh well if they can't do this then maybe there are other things they can't do and you know it's, I think it's entirely too easy to make those kinds of assumptions and so part of what it means to be a good teacher is to continually examine those assumptions that we're making and to be fair, I think even students you know with or without disabilities you know sometimes a student will struggle with a particular idea or topic and then the next topic they seem to get it you know more easily and they might need extra tutoring but exactly and that's true for everyone and I think this the opposite assumption can also happen right where if a student is successful in a particular area it's easy to assume like oh well they'll be successful in another area or in another topic and and that's not always the case and that's that's not fair to them you know to just assume that oh sure they get it and it's also not fair to assume that you know if someone struggles with one topic they're going to struggle with any variety of other topics. Employment people with special needs is Montpelier the city of Montpelier doing anything to help along that struggle or helping people with special needs get jobs? Well so we did oh sorry go ahead no no well um I would I would just say that the Montpelier sponsors a local development corporation the Montpelier Development Corporation and they are tasked with increasing the amount of housing as well as bringing in more jobs and because every state has the development corporation or something like that. Well there are different regional entities that are development corporations but Montpelier has one just for the city of Montpelier and so they're they're looking to bring in more jobs in general so that's not necessarily specific to you know finding more jobs necessarily for people with disabilities but one would hope that as we increase the the type and variety of jobs available that that would also increase. Okay how many people in Montpelier according to census do you know the numbers of how many people in Montpelier as of now? Last I I mean I have a round number the last I checked it was about 7,800. Wow. Is that about what you understand? Yeah okay um so I asked we asked this question of all I guess um what are some of the misconceptions around people with special needs when people first meet them you know being scared or that type of thing. Oh sure I um I can only. Especially people with mental challenges too because of people with special needs are dual diagnosed. Yeah no I I think often you know people with disabilities get unfairly judged you know if someone's a little different you know the when they meet people or people in the public may not know quite what to to make of a person or a situation and it's you know it's unfortunate that someone might go straight to you know being afraid or you know shying away a little bit when really uh you know I mean I'll be based on my experience in schools and students with disabilities are often just wonderful lovely and you know sometimes it's it's good to get to know like okay like this is what challenge this person is wrestling with um and then uh you know having some grace for them in that in that area and and that's fine. Your take on the same question? Well I think for any time you meet a new person biases are right there and you have to walk through them and it's a two-way street is saying hi and relating to that person and then responding having them respond to you but I think being more aware of some of not only disabilities and maybe you include mental health is not to make assumptions and that you know we assume I mean because it's a horrible uh acronym well not in my backyard you know community boards I when I was in New York I sat on community boards and they had to decide if a group home was going here or there you know that type of thing so bringing to to the misconceptions people with special needs deserve appropriate housing they deserve to live in an area despite their challenges. Well when I think back in the days in the early 1990s when we were really bringing group homes into Montpellier there was resistance but now the ones that I'm aware of have very much integrated into those neighborhoods or shared living providers you know that they're included when there's potlucks I mean when one in St. Paul's very active in its neighborhood so I think it's respecting again that maybe like I can be very outgoing now that might be offensive to somebody so I have to sort of read those signals and say okay back off talk a little softer you know and so I think those kinds of things are just being more aware that everyone's not like us. Yeah and here's another thing brings me to this question Brandon State School right institutions and people with special needs we're getting out of that we're or we have gone out of that we're not going backwards but as far as like healthcare for example it's Montpellier doing anything we have the healthcare initiatives and help people with special needs with better healthcare and like mental health or is that separate is that Washington County that's yeah that would be more in line with the Washington County mental health folks of the city Montpellier doesn't really doesn't really have a mechanism necessarily to influence healthcare. So you guys have nothing Montpellier has nothing to do with the hospitals no not directly I mean and that's always the issue sometimes we want to take on global issues and we're just a little community but I think it's very important like elements of our police that have really recognized the need for police officers to be trained in mental health and have this close relationship with mental health agencies so I think that's the way we as city council can support our staff to be more open to be more trained and to be relating to all the services but we ourselves do not provide in the past police officers as you brought that up police officers and they're still being trained they don't necessarily you know some police officers if you give them a badge they become power hungry yeah I think we have a great group yeah Chief Fakis really I mean it's the role model there it's been better in the way you know the more training you have to work with people with special needs the better off you are to understand what we go through and it's interesting to me how indirectly I feel people who are different whether they're special needs whether there's somebody who's just quirky personality whether it's mental health but the crisis with opiate I think made us shake up a lot of biases the opiate crisis opiate crisis yes a lot of biases that we thought oh the drugs are only this group of people well wow and not only that but it changed a lot of what policing does the policing instead of wanting to put that person in jail they really want to work with them to connect them to mental health to help them get better so I think not only a little bit more about the opiate crisis and how I'm no expert on that I don't I don't know how to handle that one other than to say that people across the board got into subscription drugs that then led them to the dependency that left to really negative behavior and instead of just saying you're a drug problem go away more clearly even though we were trying before I think it became more clear that we really had to be community minded and reach that person where they were and connect them to services so I think that helped everybody and it's cool to continue to help everybody as we see any of us at any time could have the same problem well yes Arlene you're being very quiet go ahead go ahead ask some questions are they going to build a health center here like something like emergency I don't sometimes when you doctor sign a valve oh yeah yeah because you have to go to age or you have to go to people's wellness center all the way over there like I know Montpelier has a health center you know that's where our doctors are across the street from where we are but sometimes there is an urgent care facility on the very Montpelier road and I've used it once it was really wonderful to have it available so there is that I would recommend them for sure obviously for not if appropriate like if it's a life-threatening emergency you definitely gotta go to the emergency room but that also is a great facility and as far as I know I don't think we have any further plans to build any other health centers but as far as okay besides the cracks and everything else that or the construction the new construction season that you got that Montpelier said is there anything that you touch with the infrastructure that needs to be oh goodness well we are sort of as you mentioned we were redoing some of the sidewalks in downtown Montpelier right now because they were uneven and needed needed some care so we're redoing some of those right now which is very exciting I think and then the other thing to look for is that in that document that I sent you the the ADA transition plan that's available on the city website which is www.montpelier-vt.org and then if you just search for ADA and then I think it's like the third or fourth a link there is the ADA transition plan that's really the thing to look for but you know we will be looking to address some of the things specifically noted in that transition plan when we get to the budget cycle which is really in November but also our capital improvement committee will be looking at some of those allocations anything else you want to say okay so let's get to the census that's important yeah explain why it's important for people who deal with the census come to your door well the reason I brought it up to you earlier was it's in the news and people may not realize that their individual piece of filling that census out will help our community better qualify for grants and federal dollars as well as being better able to assess the needs of our community that aren't obvious to us so I really encourage people to reach out and get the assistance they need to do the census because hopefully it'll be in the mail soon we're all hoping that it gets mail soon and it's extremely important since we're on the topic it's important for this November for everybody to come out and vote and if you're if you're not counted then you then you can't you know if you don't vote you're not counted especially for people with special needs so please go out and vote please sign the census if you need help I'm sure someone can help you when they come to your door you know or I'm sure they they can make it in a large print if they have to make it a large print that type of thing and please I know it's not town meeting day but if you're in the city of Montpelier uh when you hit this message please go out in town meeting day and vote and make your voice count um anything else you guys want to add about what you're well I was just thinking about November I'm I'm not sure that there is a vote this November there might be but definitely town town meeting day next March we've voted for president this is a presidential well so the primary will be in March and then the following November will be uh the presidential election so um so anyway yeah so it's coming up it's coming up it's coming to the president yes and whatever town your people listeners are from you know really I mean call your select board call your city council and it doesn't mean we can go out immediately and fix that pothole or fix that sidewalk but it'll get on our list because it does take some comprehension of the whole infrastructure in order to change some of the things that are wrong what do you mean by comprehension of the whole well you think that sidewalk is bad so you think you can save it but the fact of it is it's attached to a lot of other sidewalks that if you come in and do this you make some of the rest of it and then it moves once you have a different and depending on the weather well yes and sidewalks move this the way the pavement does so when we make a slice change believe it or not that makes that section more vulnerable to get crooked with the others so we usually try to do a longer strip so I mean that's the kind of thing if you call us we can put you in touch with our public works and find out why we can't do this exactly the way we want to but put on our list because it's complicated speaking about complicated I know that that Montpelier in the past or this past year has had several talking about public works water main breaks oh yes issues and issues with that all that water example example when we used to live in berry there was issues with the water and the turning brown and other stuff and the turning the water off yeah and a couple of times we've had to turn the they turn the water off in Montpelier and then they turn it back on because of the water main break does the water main breaks have to do with the cracks in the sidewalk at all or in terms of the whole infrastructure how is public works uh you know good clean drinking water a lot of people in certain countries don't have right and they're working on fixing that problem but what is one thing Montpelier is doing to fix like because I know weather has things to do with water main breaks big time much of the cold weather cold weather when pipes freeze very fast one part of the difficulty with this winter wasn't just necessarily the freezing but the the fluctuation yeah back and forth between like the freeze-thaw cycles right so what do you mean by that well so uh if the temperature is varying widely from you know freezing to somewhere you know in the fifties and and back down again particularly in a short time I remember the first time we moved to Vermont it was 75 degrees when Christmas yeah sure so yeah unfortunately we are having more of that inappropriate temperatures yeah but the swings really I mean it really destroys the roads but our our pipes underneath the ground are really old and we know that and we have a capital plan of replacing them but interesting enough the ones that have broken most recently aren't the oldest and it turns out that some of the newer material is not lasting as long as they were projected so now we have a little bigger problem than we thought we had but we're working on it last question ADA committee because I know that there's I've looked um you guys have an ADA committee how does that committee work within the city of Montpelier so uh I don't know how often they meet but we did just appoint someone actually to the committee anyway the meetings are open to the public and they are involved basically with seeing how the city can be increasingly compliant with ADA standards so if if you or any of your viewers want to be involved we would love to have them participate with that committee and I just want to call out Tom MacArthur the head of public works has been really committed to that committee and he is retiring this summer we're all going to miss him Tom McCarthy mca r a d le yeah it's a little difference but yeah and anyway he's been just really amazingly open focus and been the one person's been constant through the all the ADA development so I really just want to salute him and all the private citizens who have volunteered thank you to the city of Montpelier for coming today and thank you mayor and like to thank everybody for joining us on this edition of able that on there what's that website again the city's website is www.montpelier-vt.org okay Montpelier-vt.org also deal with the census and this year is vitally important and if the city of Montpelier probably can help please ask their help we'd like to thank our sponsors Washington County Mental Health Green Mountain Support Services and Champlain Community Services again this puts an end to this edition of able that on there I'm Lauren Seiler see you next time able that on air major sponsorship was given by Green Mountain Support Services empowering neighbors with disability to be home in the community also sponsorship was given by Washington County Mental Health Services where hope and support come together and Champlain Community Services of Vermont